Retired official, wife, domestic murdered in Chennai home

Chennai, Nov 20 (IANS) The high profile former head of a state-run company, his wife and teenage domestic help were found brutally murdered in their ransacked Chennai home Thursday, police here said. The bodies of S. Saravanan, 74, former chairman and managing director of the state government owned Tamil Nadu Minerals, his 73-year-old wife Kasturi and their 17-year-old domestic help were found in their suburban home in Ashok Nagar.

“The victims’ necks were found slashed,” a police official said, adding that they had been murdered in the early hours of the morning. Many gold and diamond ornaments appeared to be missing.

Investigations were on to establish whether it was a robbery-cum-murder or if there were other motives, as Saravanan was a rich man and had no heirs, police said.

Towards the end of his career in the 1980s, Saravanan had been under a cloud. He was accused of stashing sizeable wealth abroad by under-selling granite blocks in the European Community through a specially appointed agent in Germany.